


Cold Snap

by waxing_gibbous



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 04:03:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18865324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxing_gibbous/pseuds/waxing_gibbous
Summary: Jared starts knitting and Richard loses his mind.





	Cold Snap

There’s a cold snap: an even colder cold snap than the one that almost ruined the deal with FGI. They wear their parkas at work inside the hostel, just like before, but it’s not enough. They’re still freezing. So Jared decides to knit them scarves.

It’s ludicrous. One minute, he’s sitting there quietly in front of his laptop. The next minute, he’s surrounded by piles of white and green yarn. From his messenger bag, he withdraws the biggest knitting needles Richard has ever seen. They’re so big they look fake. The yarn is oversized, too. It’s about the width of an extension cord and fluffier than a kitten.

“What the---?”

“I’m knitting scarves, Dinesh,” Jared explains happily as he begins to loop yarn around one of the gigantic needles. “One for each of us, in Pied Piper colors! To help us endure the frigid temperatures!”

There’s some scoffing from Gilfoyle and another snort of disbelief from Dinesh. But Richard isn’t listening to them. He’s too busy watching Jared’s hands. Jared’s hands usually look huge. Richard knows this because he’s been distracted by them more times than he cares to admit: Jared’s huge hands on the keyboard, Jared’s huge hands plucking a tea bag from its wrapper, Jared’s huge hands delicately touching his own collarbone in a rare moment of duress or delight. Compared to the knitting needles, however, Jared’s hands look small. Jared’s hands look almost the same size as Richard’s. 

“Those things are moronic,” Gilfoyle says. “It looks like you’re pretending to joust with two wooden dicks.”

Richard twitches in his chair. Jared shrugs.

“The bigger the needles, the thicker the yarn.” Jared almost sings it. “And the thicker the yarn, the quicker you’ll get your scarves!”

###

In bed that night, Richard shivers under the covers, and not because he’s cold.

It isn’t the first time the mention of multiple penises has flipped a switch in his mind. That’s how the middle-out concept came to him: by watching the guys try to figure out how long it would take them to jerk off every single dude in the TechCrunch Disrupt audience. And now it’s happening again. A comment from Gilfoyle about jousting dicks, and his brain is doing backflips. But it’s not a revelation about the algorithm this time. It’s a revelation about Jared: a revelation he can’t possibly use.

Or can he? Ever since fucking Dan Melcher’s third wife—Jesus, what an abject disaster—he hasn’t been able to get hard. None of his go-to fantasies have worked. So what’s the harm in trying a new one? What’s the harm in seeing if this weird seed Gilfoyle planted will bear any fruit? He thinks of the big, wooden knitting needles. He imagines them as two cocks in Jared’s hands. From there, it isn’t hard to imagine the bodies attached to the cocks. It’s him and Jared and the tips of their cocks are sliding together as Jared jerks both of them off, and Richard is so hard now that it hurts. He’s pulling on his cock with a fury that makes his bunk bed shake, and when he comes, it’s so intense that it shocks him into a deep, sudden, sweaty sleep.

###

That morning, the first scarf is done. It is draped carefully over the back of Richard’s chair. It is green-and-white striped. It is ridiculously long and ridiculously soft.

“Uh. Thank you,” Richard mumbles. He sits and starts to code. The scarf is still on the chair. Even through the bulk of his parka, he can feel the scarf’s gentle plushness against his upper back. “Thank you. For the…uh…scarf...Jared.”

“My pleasure, Richard.” Jared is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, dipping a tea bag in and out of his mug. His hands look big again. Breathtakingly big. “My absolute pleasure.”

Pleasure. Pleasure. Richard’s eyes blur. It wasn’t just that one fantasy last night: the one about Jared and Jared’s cock and Richard’s cock. There was a dream, too. In the dream, there were no cocks but it was even more pleasurable than the fantasy somehow. In the dream, Jared was standing before him exactly as he’s standing now, his long, slim body in his usual khakis and button down and fleece vest. And just the sight of Jared was enough to do it. Richard came. Unconscious, untouched. His first wet dream in over a decade. 

When Jared sits down at his work station, which is right next to Richard’s, Richard gives his penis a stern talking-to. 

Nope. Not now. Not ever. Not ever again. 

But his penis has different ideas. It jumps and pulses as Jared types, his long, thick, capable fingers flying over the keys. When Jared shuts his laptop and removes the fucking knitting needles and yarn from the bag beneath the desk, Richard’s dick does a backflip. But he doesn’t look away from Jared. He watches intently. Desensitization, they call it. Immersion therapy. He will watch Jared knit until it seems like the most ordinary, unsexy thing in the entire world, which, objectively, it already is. It’s something old ladies do, Richard tells himself. Crusty, crotchety old ladies. And maybe that’s why Jared looks so smooth and fresh and luscious in comparison. His lightly furrowed brow, his lips in a small, succulent pout. God, those hands. There’s this one part—at the very end of the stitch, Richard assumes—where Jared pushes down on one of the needles with his index finger and Richard can feel the pressure right at the tip of his cock. He can feel Jared’s finger pressing into the little hole there and slipping around on the pre-come. He can feel Jared’s---

“Richard, I’m so happy you’re showing some interest!” He doesn’t look up from his knitting as he says this, for which Richard is preposterously grateful. “If you’d like, my friend Muriel at the nursing home would be happy to teach you, just like she taught me! Or I’d be happy to see to it personally that you---”

“No! Nope! No, no, no.” He says it so forcefully that both Dinesh and Gilfoyle look up from their screens with raised eyebrows.

“No.” This time, Richard is speaking in a calmer voice but there’s still a panicked edge to it. There’s still a terrible threat of tightness in his pants. “I’m not interested…it’s just. It’s the sound. The needles. The clickety clackety. It’s really distracting and I’m just…”

Richard puts both hands in his hair and bugs out his eyes. Jared frowns in despair.

“Oh dear.” Jared stands. His body unfurls slowly and elegantly, like a weird, pale flower in Richard’s peripheral vision. Richard holds his breath. “I’ll relocate to the living room. I’m so sorry, Richard. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Just hurry up and finish mine, Grandma Dunn,” Gilfoyle shouts as Jared leaves the room. “It’s even colder in here than it was yesterday.”

###

That night, Richard’s fantasy is different. 

His own cock isn’t even involved. That is, it’s involved in the sense that he’s masturbating furiously, but in his imagination, it’s just Jared. It’s just Jared touching himself. In waking life, Richard has never seen Jared indulge any of his personal appetites. He pushes away his own needs, both small and large, in order to tend to the needs of others. So there has to be a point, Richard reasons, at which the cumulative delayed gratification becomes too much. There has to be a point at which the pressure to do something—anything—for himself becomes too urgent for Jared to deny. 

Richard looks down at his cock as he strokes it, amazed at its hardness. It matches his body: it’s on the small side, but it’s very, very responsive to stimuli. Even when it’s soft, it still looks springy and alert and ready. It’s Richard in miniature. This isn’t the case with everyone, though. Sometimes the cock doesn’t match its owner. Sometimes there’s a surprise. And this is how Richard imagines Jared tonight: as a shy, willowy man with an absolute monster of a dick. It’s the width of a soda can, and Richard can see Jared taking his time with it, as if he’s frightened of what it might do if provoked. He can see Jared undressing himself so that he’s naked except for a green-and-white striped scarf around his neck. He can see those long fingers teasing that big, big cock until it’s red and pulsing. It stands out against the white skin on his stomach like someone spray-painted it there. When Jared really starts going for it, it’s like he’s exorcising a demon. His face and chest are flushed, the tendons stand out in his neck, his teeth are clenched. And when Jared comes, Richard thinks of archery. Jared’s arched back is the bow, and the arrow is the sound of Jared howling Richard’s name.

###

Gilfoyle is very pleased with his scarf. 

It’s kind of adorable, actually: the unexpectedness of his delight. Whenever he stands from his desk to get something from the kitchen, he whips it over his shoulder and strides across the room like a pirate.

And what Gilfoyle has, Dinesh wants, so Dinesh starts haranguing Jared, who continues to hide out in the living room because he doesn’t want to bother Richard.

“Jared!” Dinesh yells “Jared!”

“I’m working as fast as I can, Dinesh,” Jared yells amiably in response. “You’ll have it by tonight.”

Dinesh grins with satisfaction and returns to his work. Richard is working, too, but on a different sort of problem. He’s doing some quick, easy mental math. As soon as Dinesh’s scarf is finished, Richard reasons, Jared will probably knit one for himself, because Jared loves nothing more than being part of something. And then maybe one for Monica, but that will be it. Two more scarves—max—and this whole ordeal will be over. There will be no more strange fantasies. There will be no more imagining what Jared is up to, unseen, in the living room. Is he actually just knitting, Richard wonders now? Or is he taking advantage of the relative privacy to do something else, too? Between knitted rows, is he reaching down to stroke himself over his khakis? Is his head thrown back and is his hair slightly out of place? Is there a redness to his cheeks that makes the cold room feel like an oven? Richard hasn’t touched his scarf yet. Not with his hands. It’s still draped over his chair, and it’s become a sort of habit now: leaning back against it imagining he’s leaning back against Jared. He imagines that the mass of yarn is Jared’s hardening cock, secretly pressing into Richard’s waist. 

###

At around midnight, Richard climbs down from the bunk bed. His erection is like a beacon, and it guides him into the hostel’s dark workspace, the only lights those of the screensavers swirling around on the monitors. He snatches his scarf from the back of his chair and scurries back to his room as if he’s stolen something. He is half-asleep and half-crazy with lust and he’s not sure what he’s doing, but when he lies back and smells the scarf, he can smell Jared. When he wraps the scarf around his cock, it’s like being transported to a different, superior universe. Jared’s hands. Jared’s hands made the thing he’s fucking right now. Jared’s eyes assessed its growth and deemed it worthy. And oh god: to have those eyes watching Richard as he does this to himself, as he does this to his scarf. Just imagine it. Jared standing at the edge of the bed, his eyes level with Richard’s cock, watching with big, soft, worshipful eyes as Richard pleasures himself, which, by default, would pleasure Jared. My captain, Jared would whisper. Or maybe he wouldn’t whisper anything. Maybe he would just match Richard moan for moan. Maybe he would lean over to kiss him, to swallow Richard’s screams, at the exact moment Richard came.

###

The next morning, everyone but Richard is wearing one of Jared’s scarves and Jared isn’t happy about it. Not that he would ever say as much out loud in front of the others. But Richard can tell by his shoulders, which are more slumped than usual, that Jared is distraught.

When Richard goes to the kitchen to get something to eat, Jared follows.

“Richard,” Jared begins. Richard freezes in front of the open fridge, grateful for the extra shot of cold in the already-cold room, grateful to have something to look at other than Jared. “Lord knows it’s not any of my business, and you’re free to do with my gift whatever you wish. But I noticed the scarf isn’t on your chair anymore, and you’re not wearing it either, and if there’s anything I can do—if I can make it shorter or longer, or if I can use softer yarn…”

“Jared, it’s not…it’s not…I’m not wearing the scarf because it’s…”

…because it’s covered in cum and hidden beneath my pillow, Richard thinks.

“…because I just don’t like scarves. In general. I don’t like having things around my neck. It has nothing to do with you or your…talents. I just don’t…”

Richard flutters his hands against his Adam’s apple and gives a little shudder. 

Jared gives a stiff, formal bow. Richard’s longing is like a knife in his chest. 

“I’m sorry, Richard. I never should have presumed to know what you’d want.”

Oh Jared, Richard thinks as Jared leaves the kitchen. What I want is you.

###

The yarn isn’t green and white anymore. 

It’s peach and cream. Girl colors, Richard thinks, although he knows such gender specificity is horribly retrograde. Still, the new colors make him wonder, so he gathers up his courage and enters the living room. There is no one else in the house today but him and Jared—no one to overhear their conversation or to intrude on it—so Richard does the boldest thing he can think of. He sits next to Jared on the couch and tries to act casual. He tries to act like the encounter in the kitchen never happened. He tries to act like, for the past week, the mere thought of Jared hasn’t sent electric shocks straight to his groin. 

“So,” Richard says. “Different yarn, huh? Making one for Monica? Or Laurie? Or your buddy Muriel?”

Jared gives a slightly coyer version of his usual smile. He holds up the scarf-in-progress and measures it against his neck. The peach and cream actually suit Jared beautifully. They highlight his old-fashioned complexion, his pink mouth, the exacting part of his hair.

“It’s for a lady, yes,” he admits. “But it would be untoward to say much more.”

Untoward. Richard knows this word. The first time Jared said it, it rang in Richard’s ears for weeks after the fact. It was the first moment, perhaps, that Richard knew he had more complicated feelings for Jared than he was ready to admit. And, oh it’s bad today. Very, very bad. The complicated feelings are a hurricane, and it’s not only the yarn that’s different. It’s also the needles. These new needles are as cartoonishly small as the others were cartoonishly large. The way Jared handles them. The way he coaxes and wields and smooths them. My god, Richard thinks. Oh. My. God.

“To paraphrase Russ Hanneman,” Jared says perkily, innocently, proudly. “This guy effs!”

It’s the last straw. Richard jumps up from the couch and runs to his room. He doesn’t slam the door behind him—he is not a child—but he definitely closes it firmly. He holds his breath until he hears what he knows he’ll hear next: Jared’s soft, quick footsteps in the hallway. Jared knocking gently on the door before easing it half-open.

“Richard?”

Richard is on the floor, knees bent to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins. Again, he is not a child. But in the ways of love and sex, he’s not exactly a man. Not quite yet.

“Richard, what have I done?” Jared pleads softly. “I made a horrible mistake with the scarf, I know, but for the past several days, it’s seemed like something much more. Like I’ve hurt you in some way. Like I’ve done something truly horrible to you, something truly---”

Jared’s words cut off abruptly. Richard peeks up from his folded forearms. Jared is looking at his bunk bed. More specifically, he’s looking at the tail of the green-and-white scarf poking out from beneath Richard’s pillow. 

Jared moves to the bed like a sleepwalker and reaches out for the scarf. With excruciating slowness, he pulls its entire length out from beneath the pillow. Then he rubs it between his fingers, pausing on the rough, sticky, stained patches where Richard has left his mark.

Well, Richard thinks, it’s been a nice life, I guess. And now I have to die.

“Oh fuck,” Richard whines. He’s going to throw up.

Jared joins him on the floor but says nothing. Instead, he takes off his own scarf, tosses it into the corner alongside a pile of Richard’s hoodies, and puts Richard’s scarf on in its place. Once Jared has wrapped Richard’s scarf around his neck—that long, cool, lick-able neck—he brings the fabric of it up to his mouth and nose. He closes his eyes as he inhales.

“Oh fuck,” Richard says again. He no longer feels like going to throw up. He feels like he’s going to spontaneously combust.

“I’m so happy, Richard.” Jared’s eyes are still closed. “I’m so happy you found a way to enjoy it.”

Suddenly, every detail in the room is sharp and specific, impossible to ignore. The vague color and the gritty texture of the carpeting. The red glow of his alarm clock. The way the sun is setting outside, making the light inside progressively softer, progressively darker, progressively more surreal and well-suited to whatever is going to happen next.

Richard’s erection is obvious. Jared eyes it with what looks like awe.

“Will you show me, Richard?” Jared asks courteously, hesitantly. “Will you please show me how you used the scarf?”

It’s almost too much. Richard almost passes out, right there on his bedroom floor. But by some miracle he manages to stay conscious. By some miracle, he even manages to make an unexpected choice. On hands and knees, he moves close to Jared. There’s the urge to go straight for Jared’s cock, but he knows Jared is more traditional than that. He knows that Jared wants to be wooed.

Richard has never kissed a man before. To be honest, he’s barely kissed a woman. But nothing about it feels strange. It feels magnificent to kiss Jared. Just lips at first, soft and trembling. Then he’s nudging at Jared with his tongue, and Jared is opening his mouth, and everything is suddenly sweet and hot and wet. Tea. Jared tastes like chamomile tea with a long, thick squeeze of honey.

Jared sucks at Richard’s lower lip and then gently bites it. Richard makes a sound. 

“Richard,” Jared says, his lips against Richard’s ear.

Richard makes the sound again, much louder this time. Richard’s hands are at his sides; his hands are in fists. He has been so focused on the kiss that he hasn’t thought to move them. But Jared is a much better multi-tasker than Richard is. Jared’s hands are on the move. One of them is in Richard’s hair, petting and tugging. The other hand is on Richard’s chest, right above his heart.

“Richard,” Jared repeats.

Richard wants to say Jared’s name in response, but he can’t. He’s forgotten how to speak. He’s forgotten everything except how badly he wants. How badly he needs. It was just like this in all those fantasies and dreams: a longing for Jared that felt like a sweet version of starvation.

Jared moves his mouth to Richard neck and tongues the divot between his collarbones. 

“Oh god,” Richard finally manages. His voice is high and broken and it brings a glittering, almost sinister light to Jared’s eyes.

“I would never,” Jared says as he unbuttons Richard’s shirt and removes it, “do anything to upset you.”

Jared takes Richard’s left nipple into his mouth and flicks at it with his tongue.

“Ah!” Richard whines.

“If I ever do anything to upset you,” Jared continues, his hands on Richard’s belt buckle, “you need to tell me. You need to tell me about it, just like you told me about the scarf.”

Richard’s fly is open now and the head of his cock, wet and swollen and purple, is peeking out of his boxers, just like the scarf was peeking out from beneath his pillow. He wants Jared to pull it all the way out of his boxers, just like he pulled the scarf all the way out from under the---

“Oh!” Richard cries.

His cock is suddenly in Jared’s hand. His entire cock. It’s right there. He can see it. He can see Jared running his thumb over the tip and then sliding his fist down its length, pausing at the base before sliding back up again. 

“Was it like this, Richard?” Jared asks politely. “When you were in bed? With the scarf?”

Richard wants to say yes because he wants Jared to keep going. But he also wants to be honest with Jared for once. Completely, painfully, blissfully honest. He leans away from Jared’s grip and hears Jared whimper a little as Richard’s cock springs free. Richard unwraps the scarf from Jared’s neck, and makes a demand he knows Jared cannot refuse.

“Take out your cock, Jared.”

There’s that look again. Those adoring, baby-blue doe-eyes morphing into the eyes of something wild and sharp and needful.

Jared undoes his belt, unzips his khakis, and complies. It’s better than Richard’s fantasies. So much better. Jared’s cock is exactly like Jared, but like a primal version of him. Jared’s big cock fits perfectly within his big hand. The proportions are perfect. The way Jared begins to stroke himself is perfect. Everything is perfect. And it’s going to get better. Richard has never been more determined about anything in his life.

With a grunt of dizzy seriousness, Richard swats Jared’s hand away from his cock. He replaces Jared’s hand with the scarf. Jared looks a little scandalized at first, but then he starts to giggle as Richard grabs one of his hips and encourages him to thrust. Soon Jared is fucking the scarf—the scarf in Richard’s hand—and Richard is giggling, too. It’s unthinkable and it’s ridiculous and it’s the hottest thing Richard has ever seen or imagined. There’s that spontaneous combustion feeling again: the one that makes Richard want more, more, more even if it makes his entire body explode.

Richard loosens his hand and allows the scarf to drop to the floor. Jared looks pained for a second, almost offended. Then he smiles that strange, gorgeous, wincing smile of his as he unbuttons his shirt. When he starts to remove his pants, Richard copies him. They’re both naked now, in front of each other, on their knees. When Richard looks down, he sees both of their cocks straining upwards, within inches of touching. It’s just like that very first fantasy, he realizes. The one that started it all. The two cocks in Jared’s hands. Jared’s incomparable focus. His breathtaking skill.

“Can you---?” Richard squeaks.

“Anything, Richard,” Jared says, reaching out a hand to cup Richard’s cheek. “Anything.”

“Aaahhh, Jesus. Can you…both of us…in your hands. Can you do it, Jared? Like you’re…like you’re knitting?”

Jared smiles and leans forward so that their foreheads are touching. Moments later, their other heads are touching, too, and Jared is wrapping his hands around them and squeezing.

“You have to do this,” Jared explains, “to get an even stitch.”

“Oh.” It’s half-laughing, half-moaning, and all arousal. “Oh, Jared.”

At the sound of his own name in Richard’s voice, something happens to Jared. Richard can see it and feel it: the way Jared’s back straightens and his muscles clench. The way his hands starts moving with expert force and precision. It’s almost savage, but in a demure way that only Jared could ever manage. Richard can feel every inch of Jared’s cock trapped against his. So, so hot and so, so hard. Pre-cum is dripping now, oozing and sliding. They are wetter and wetter with each stroke. Wetter and wetter and faster and faster, and Richard needs to bite something. He decides on Jared’s shoulder.

“Richard…oh, Richard. FUCK.” 

The word rings out, wanton and foreign in Jared’s mouth. Jared twists his wrist and does something spectacular to Richard’s frenulum. And then comes the part Richard was too shy or too inexperienced to fully imagine. Jared’s body seizing up. Jared’s strangled shout. Jared’s semen spurting out onto Richard’s stomach, hot and slick and white. When Richard comes moments later, it doesn’t feel like an orgasm. It feels like Jared is pulling his soul straight out of his body.

When it’s done, they remain on their knees for a second and just look at each other. Then they collapse onto the carpet. Later, they will talk. Later, they will laugh and reminiscence and marvel at how long it took. Weeks. Months. Maybe even years of hidden and unrecognized longing. They will spend hours parsing it out, teasing each other for their shared reticence. Their lives together will be full of words. For now, though, they are quiet in each others’ arms. They are quiet and they are knitting. They are knitting their legs together. They are knitting their fingers together. They are knitting a future together that neither of them expected.


End file.
